information.
this week's topic is Audience and Context
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"The most important element the new medium adds to our repertoire of representational powers is its procedural nature. Its ability to capture experience as systems of interrelated actions. We are engaged in establishing the building blocks of a procedural medium, the musical figures that may someday grow into a symphonic form" Janet H. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck
What is the future of narrative in cyberspace? Can we find new ways to tell our stories using these multimedia tools? Is the web a good medium for distributing these stories? In what ways can we encourage new voices to the heard, and alter the relationship between artist, producer and audience? Does the story ultimately remain the same, or is there something very different about narrative on the web?
featured products.
The Memory Box
In a multimedia postcard to his son, Joe Lambert reflects on memory and its meaning in a digital age
Bodysong
Simon Pummell reveals the creative processes behind this cross-media project
Capture Wales
Daniel Meadows explains the importance of digital storytelling for people in Wales
www.360degrees.org
a hard-hitting examination of the US criminal justice system
www.citystories.com
a growing network of online storytellers in cities around the world
featured product :: The Memory Box.
Reflections On The Memory Box - Joe Lambert 2003
As the founder and director of the Center for Digital Storytelling, I spend most of my time helping people tell stories from their lives.
In 1998, I wrote an article about the Memory Box. The argument was that one function of the present day multimedia computer was as an appliance for reflection on life. What we imagined was that in the near future, the digital archive of our life's experience in email, image, sound, and moving image could provide a fairly extensive record of the events of our existence on the planet.
In the many years of our work I have been intriqued by the stories of friends who found themselves as voyeurs into the harddrives of loved ones that had died. Their digital archeology unearthed information beyond expectation, and suggested that disposition the ethereal remnants of our data, had suddenly become the basis of a new dilemma for our last will and testament. Should our data die with us? Is it okay to re-format the drive of the deceased?
This brief postcard to the future concerns my own death, and what my son Massimo should look for on my harddrive, and what I leave for him to delete.
Advance the images at your own pace.
Top five best selling products
- 'Handmade Code' from Web Environments
- 'www.sodaplay.com' from Design and the Digital Aesthetic
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- 'erroneous404' from Design and the Digital Aesthetic
- 'Soundtoys' from Design and the Digital Aesthetic
neil jenkins Recommends
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=1902&t
ext=3236#3236
Eryk Salvaggio's Six Rules Towards A New Internet Art
http://www.mteww.com/nad.html
Simple Net Art Diagram (MTAA - M.River & T.Whid Art Associates - 1997)
http://www.furtherstudio.org/live
vistors studio - a live, multi user environment with audio visual mixing tools
The Memory Box customer reviews.
death and the maiden - erik stackpiece
Tuesday, Mar 16, 2004 
Listen to Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' as I have done countless times. All of Schubert's skills are recorded faithfully in the score. It is at times emotional, dark and poignant. But then so much is in the playing and each new recorded version brings out different aspects of the original music. One might view digital technologies as a further attempt at immortality. A way of digitising the best or worst moments of ones life. Schubert's score seems very durable when compared to a quicktime movie - but then that movie of a loved one can easily become as precious as Joe says. Our culture poses the question of storage. The memory box is finite, yet in the Western world our idea of fame or recognition is projected firmly on us. We have to matter - our blood and thoughts turned into ones and zeroes. But then the computer is no more than a convenient way of generating the score of ones life. This score might be taken by new players and turned into something completely different. Classical music heavily underpins popular music and digital equipment merely raises the composition to the point of sampling. The necessity to record 'at source' seems less necessary. A MIDI programme such as 'Reason' can easily replicate dance tracks with limited skill. At this point we might wonder at exactly how much information can be produced and stored in the memory box. Memory itself is not selective all the time - we might remember uncomfortable things triggered by day-to-day association (as Proust realised). Computer memory is more determinsitic or volitional as the user makes decisions. But in time a picture of me sitting at this laptop in the South West of England might seem charming and quaint. Did people really use such things to write on? How could the 9/11 Firemen know that the picture of them raising the hydrant and shouting 'Holy Shit' could become embedded in our political culture? From this we surmise that any attempt to coordinate or order what digital information we leave behind is perhaps a vain attempt to edit our lives. Far better for Joe's son to make the decisions on what is kept. Or
The IdeasMart is now closed
Digest was open during March 2004 - PLEASE NOTE it is now closed and available for browsing only... we hope you enjoy your visit.
Becky Pratchett Recommends
http://www.youknowsit.co.uk
Seminal welsh hip-hoppers the Goldie Lookin Chain hit just the right tone in their sarky site. very funny.
http://www.davidandgoliathtees.com/new/games
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everyone wants to throw rocks at boys from time to time